As a young child I was told I had to be harnessed to the bed and escaped at will. When memory serves I and my friends were doing stunt bike stuff sans helmets or pads at six and seven because we all loved Evel Knievel - mid 1960s before BMX. Then there was the pellet gun war games. And dares seeing ambulances on a regular basis.
All that came to a screeching halt for me when I borrowed a girl’s bike and she called out “I think the brake is bad!” Sure enough I came around a corner with a Cadillac bearing down, only little old lady blue hair visible above its wheel. “Break failure - speed through.” No, the old broad turned into my escape route and hit me around 35 mph, sending me flying some fifty feet and hitting the pavement on a curb.
According to the girl who rescued me the old lady kept on traveling. That brave and awesome girl dragged my crushed carcass to her parent’s door and dictated orders, saving my life. Fading in and out I recall that.
“Hey Mike, what does this have to do with child abuse?”
I was abusing myself via adventure while in a foster family that mayhaps didn’t exert enough control. While I got better my mishap had a lot to do with the divorce of the foster family taking care of me, so I was shuffled onto a family where the father believed everything his born daughters said while he never hesitated to translate his disappointment of my not becoming him with never-ending switchings, beltings and such.
Dude wouldn’t let up until the hickory was just chips amongst my blood or he just got tired. Thank God I’m not a scarring type. At 14 I was big enough, retaliated with a kitchen chair and camped on Lookout Mountain. He reported me a runaway and they snagged me coming down for supplies.
Sorry for all that dross. It started as a reply and found there is no justification for child abusers and the hate for what was done to me still burns.
Being better than the abuser without lowering oneself to their level is the goal. Convincing that to one’s soul is a different story.
I’m sorry for the abuse and the pain it still causes.
That said - you’re quite the storyteller. After enjoying the ambling, modern Mark Twain-esque air of your post (for example “that brave and awesome girl dragged my crushed carcass to her parent’s door and dictated orders, saving my life” and “until the hickory was just chips amongst my blood”), I read your profile page and found a bit more of the same. You should write your memoirs while you have all this extra time, and in that same bemused, reflective, descriptive style.
I’d read it. :)
Thanks for sharing all that.
So the blue-haired little old lady kept on going? Did she ever know she’d hit someone?
Thanks again.
Thanks for sharing your story. I’d read your book, too, if you ever decide to write one.